For most of the women I have talked to radiation was the easiest stage of their treatment. That wasn't the case for me. It was the WORST! Seriously I have never come so close to quitting anything in my life but towards the end I was very close to crying uncle and asking for a break. Taking a break could have given the cancer a brief moment to grow again though so I put on my big girl panties and sucked it up. Working though chemo and returning so quickly from surgery wasn't that bad but working through rads. was terrible. There is no delicate way to say it just simply sucked. I don't have much to say about this phase of treatment. I hated everything about it. Well other than the techs I got to see each and everyday. They were pretty awesome. There were some days that I was on the verge of tears going in but I would leave laughing. There were other days where I was burned so bad that they had tears and on those days I found a little strength to make them laugh. Its funny how much you get used to seeing someone when you see them everyday for 6 weeks. The following are pictures from radiation. To be honest this isn't even the worst of it. By the end I didn't have the energy to take pictures.
This first one was about 3 weeks into radiation. The stickers with the targets are used by the radiation techs to line up the machine. I also have a bunch of small dots tattooed on me for this same purpose. I had "superclav"radiation which means they also radiated my neck and collar bone area. It turned red but nothing like the rest of it. Part of the reason is because they used a "bullace" (sp) thing which was because I had IBC. Basically this plastic thing they laid over my chest made the machine burn the hell out of me! LOL
FYI that little bulge along my scar line that kind of looks like there could be a boob there is just fluid building up after my drains were removed. Eventually that went away.
This second picture is during the fifth week. This is when I quit running at the gym and basically stopped wearing a shirt except for going to work. I rarely left the house at this point because I hated wearing cloths. I used a lot of creams and burn stuff but most of these either soaked through my shirt or made my shirt stick to my burn. Neither of which were great options. This was the biggest test of my strength and will power that I have ever faced. My radiation appointments were mid afternoon and by the sixth week I ended up just going home after instead of going back to work for another hour. Looking back I realize that I probably should have just stayed home once it go this bad so that I didn't have to wear a shirt and could have just had burn cream on it all the time. I'm not sure what I was thinking! Oh and if you are wondering what that little bump is on my left side is, that is my Port-a-cath. Its what they use to give me my Chemo. They would take this needle thing and poke through my skin into that device which went into my vain. I kept that stupid thing for nearly two years. I was so happy to see that go!
Next up the end result of all my treatments and surgery's!
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